Don Wollheim — DAW — was one of the founders of fandom, a BNF, editor, publisher, and writer. He was a founding member of the Futurians, and was a major influence on the early development of fandom. He found sf in 1927 through Amazing. He became active in the International Stf Guild in the Spring of 1934 and locally in the New York City branch of the ISA.

While the Futurians were by far the most influential, he was also involved in many other clubs. He was VP and editor of the TFG, treasure and last president of the ISA, and chairman of the CPASF.

During the 40s and 50s he became a moderately successful, though minor, SF writer, but his real professional influence was as an editor and publisher. Robert Silverberg said that Wollheim was "one of the most significant figures in 20th century American science fiction publishing….A plausible case could be made that he was the most significant figure — responsible in large measure for the development of the science fiction paperback, the science fiction anthology, and the whole post-Tolkien boom in fantasy fiction."

Before World War II, he edited two prozines, Stirring Science Stories and Cosmic Stories, and in 1943 he edited the first science fiction anthology to be mass-market published, The Pocket Book of Science Fiction. In 1945 he edited the first hardcover anthology from a major publisher and the first sf omnibus, The Viking Portable Novels of Science as well as in 1947 the first anthology of original sf, The Girl With the Hungry Eyes.

From 1947 to 1951 he was the editor at the pioneering paperback publisher Avon Books. He edited Out of This World Adventures, a pulp magazine for two issues, in July and December 1950. OOTWA included a comic book insert along with its science fiction stories. In 1952, he left Avon for Ace where he edited the new paperback publisher Ace Books which remains a major publisher of SF to this day.

He may have singlehandedly created the modern fantasy market by bringing out the unauthorized US paperback edition of Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings which triggered enormous controversy and probably caused the fantastically successful Houghton Mifflin paperback LotRs to be published.

In 1971, he left Ace to found DAW (from Donald A Wollheim) Books with his wife Elsie Wollheim. It was later under their daughter Betsy Wollheim. He also edited and published the popular "Annual World's Best Science Fiction" anthology from 1971 until his death in 1990.

As a pro, he was GoH at Nolacon II, though, sadly, he was never honored as a Worldcon's Fan Guest of Honor. He was the subject of a Founding Member article by Jon D. Swartz in the December, 2015 issue (Volume 74, Number 12) of The National Fantasy Fan.